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the bugs

3 (4%)

the stories (including the !!SCIENCE!!)

27 (36%)

the learning curve

1 (1.3%)

FUN

11 (14.7%)

Other (post your reasons)

4 (5.3%)

all of the above

29 (38.7%)

Total Members Voted: 75

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I love it for its complexity.  It's basically real life, if real life included maniacal bearded drunk midgets all over.

[maxcat61]

I love that feeling of trying, and failing over and over and over again, until I eventually figure out what I was doing wrong. I feel like my tactics evolve with the environment. I also like the instances where your fort population dips down <5, like when you bum-rush a foe with the entire fort (and watch the entire fort die).

Try 1: Evil Biome. Killed by undead polar bear in 20s.
Try 2: Dug. Undead elk bird walked into cave, and killed everyone.
Try 3: Build a wall around me. Undead climb it and kill everyone.
Try 4: Make a Moat to go with the wall. Undead Bird comes and kills everyone.
Try 5: Add a roof. As the workers are finishing it, a cloud of Evil comes and transforms everyone outside into thralls.
Try 6: Whenever a Fog comes, I burrow everyone into the bottom of the fort. When I let the door down for the merchants, the zombies run in and kill everyone.
Try 7: I discover the glory that is Cage Traps. Unfortunately, a trap-void zombie walks over it and kills everyone.
Try 8: Barricade a dwarf in a room with 8 years of meals and booze (or a well). Works until he goes insane from the ghosts.
Try 9: Success. I have 3 separate Airlocks that use bridges to separate the fort and the Zombies. However, migrants all die to the horde outside.

Try 10: Marksdwarfs on the Roof with Fortifications. The militia has been wiped out to a man 4 times in a row. The last migrant wave of 30 dwarfs was massacred by 1 undead dwarf. The fort's main production is coffins and slabs. At the worst time, there were only 2 living dwarfs. Still ongoing.

[ajar]

The moments like just now when you pour magma into your obsidian wall basement cast... the smell of scorched wooden logs in the morning with the sight of the forest crying in decay in such intensity you start to wonder whether you accidentally set up a forest fire instead of just autumn. Then sipping some dwarven rum and wine from the caravan you bought with a couple of giant steel axe blades.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Dwarf4Explosives]

That's a beautiful landscape ajar.

[ajar]

Yeah

[Wondabarrapa]

i love it for the carnage and !!FUN!!

[Taffer]

I appreciate the depth of Dwarf Fortress gameplay and how it always manages to surprise me, even after years of playing time. I dislike complexity that exists solely for the sake of complexity, but fortunately most of the complexity of Dwarf Fortress serves the depth of the gameplay.

[Dunamisdeos]

There is no joy like the joy of flinging live hungry crocodiles at your enemies.

[AlexanderTheIncompetant]

 Epic constructions, like ones involving nobles...

[callisto8413]

I love the stories.  The horror of watching a soldier being overwhelmed by goblins or the joy of wiping out a group of trolls.  The sadness of a mother going insane after watching her baby passing away or the surprise of watching a wounded, broken, batted Dwarf recover to live and fight and love again.  The pride of putting those final touches on a Grand Dining Room whose very existence makes those who just walk through it feel bliss. The glee as your enemy tries to cross that one block wide bridge while under fire from elite archers.  That lone baby that everybody seems willing to care or that child that stays in the hospital for weeks sitting next to the sick parents.  That one Dwarf from the original Seven who has become hardened, scared, and old yet has become the mascot of your Fortress.  The Dwarfs who gain titles or do something so cool you give them a nickname.  All the little stories that weave together to make your Fortress.

[TheFlame52]

The Dwarfs who gain titles or do something so cool you give them a nickname.

Awww yeah. I've got a dwarf called the Brewmeister who is a legendary brewer, one of the first migrants, and some quirk of personality that makes him a badass. He's crippled (got on the wrong end of a cave croc) and has killed 7 cavern critters, including a GCS, with his bare hands.

[Spehss _]

I found myself getting bored of DF recently and wondering what I liked about it.

Then I recently embarked onto a sinister volcano and watched my embark party fall to ruin against a single undead wombat corpse that my two hammerdwarves couldn't pummel into submission. Watched the combat frame-by-frame as the two hammerdwarves became too exhausted to fight while the wombat corpse shook the unconscious founding farmer around by the head until he bled out, then chewed the two unconscious hammerdwarves and their terrified war dogs to death. The resulting corpses animated and killed off the rest of my party and the settlement barely lasted a month.

It was hilarious to see it in ASCII and imagine what it was like for the dwarves. It's situations like these that make me love DF. Quirky, absurd, fantasy fun and spirals of !!fun!!. No other game can have dwarves lose a war of attrition to a single undead wombat.

[JimboM12]

All of the above, of course.

Recently watched the extended versions of the Hobbit movies, now I'm back into the game (took a break while the starter pack got updated). I want to make Erebor, and fill it with gold coins and pretty much recreate the movie.

The main reason I love the game; full creative control over how you want to play. Glorious dwarven fortress that will stand the test of time and be filled with priceless goodies, a veritable heaven for all bearded ones and their allies? Yes, please. A hellish landscape where all males are forced into military service while females take care of all the hard labor, including manufacturing stock quality armor plate and crossbows for the poor conscripts? Even more Yes, please! Fortress using militarized chickens as the primary defense? YES.

[NESgamer190]

I personally admire Dwarf Fortress for the stories, the curve, and the critical thinking on how to best develop a fortress.  (Not to mention the modding and countless sentencing of crundles into serrated disk traps and magma dropping any other undesirable creatures that'll survive 100 disks.)

[Corona688]

Some of the bugs have made me laugh to tears.  The stories are a close second.